Just Suppose

Odd Company -- November 4, 2024

Dear Friends, Family, Neighbors, and Those of You I Don’t Yet Know —

Welcome to this post-Halloween, election eve issue of Odd Company. I hope you gave many treats and got no tricks at all. And I hope the same for tomorrow.

Sunday’s changeover from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time took me completely by surprise. I knew it was coming, but didn’t bother to research the particulars. I mean, you’d have to be living under a rock not to hear about it well in advance, or not to just feel it in your bones, right? After all, it’s part of the turning of the seasons. The long, long days of high summer are long, long gone. When I get up around 6:00 and head out to the kitchen to feed the cats (who are often giving voice to their impatience by then), it is very dark now. John’s new lung seems to have come along with a deep need for more sleep. So, not wanting to disturb him, I stumble around the bedroom by memory — fine as long as there are no stray shoes or cat toys lying in ambush. In July, none of this was an issue, because dawn was already breaking. The body should know the end of Daylight Savings Time looms. But no. I got no shivers. Nor did I see anything about it in the newspapers or hear about it on the radio. I found out about it when I looked at my phone to check the time and the weather. Surprise! An extra hour! Good thing it’s not spring. Why do we keep doing this? I guess because it’s more complicated than it seems. We can’t agree on how to proceed.

I’m thinking maybe we’re all in the mood for something upbeat tonight. I certainly am. So here’s a somewhat convoluted story about how I came across a group of people who have given their grandmothers the power to decide who would make a good leader.

My counselor mentioned a book during one of our meetings a few months ago. He does this regularly. Just drops the name of a book if it seems related to our topic and he thinks it might interest me. He’s in his 80’s, and has read a lot in his life. So I’ve found some of my favorite books that way. The book in question today is Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction novel, The Years of Rice and Salt, which I’ve just finished reading. This book is an “alternate history.” To write an alternate history, the author changes one fact about the past and then explores how this change might have affected history. Say we never discovered the wheel; or the Russians got to the moon first; or in this case, suppose the Black Plague was 99% fatal and it wiped out all the Christian cities. The “discovery” of North and South America might then have come from the East instead of the West, and been made by Chinese Buddhists or Arab Muslims. And here’s the most unexpected part. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Iroquois might have become a world power. Bet you didn’t see that coming! I had never heard of them. Gaps in my education crop up on a regular basis. I suppose they do in everyone’s, if they’re paying attention.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is also sometimes known as The League of Five (or Six) Nations. Originally, it was composed of five Iroquoian nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Later, the Tuscarora people, who lived further south, were admitted to membership in the organization. It is still in existence today. Even in the real version of history, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was a major force to be reckoned with during America’s early colonial period. They negotiated treaties with all the big players of the day, including the English, the French, and the Colonies (and later with the United States government). And their help was much sought after. It is also quite likely that the Haudenosaunee Law of Peace influenced the structure of the U.S. Constitution. Some of our founding fathers were students of — and were impressed by — the Haudenosaunee’s way of governing themselves.

Why am I riffing about this? Because in The Years of Rice and Salt, one of the questions Robinson explores is this: what would the ideal human government look like? The answer he lands on is The Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Now…we novelists do take some liberties when writing our stories. And Robinson’s book is an alternate history, so it’s largely conjecture. But when you look at the government of the Iroquois empire, it’s pretty impressive. I won’t go into too much detail here. Let’s just say it was (and still is) a representative government with considerable power vested in the individual nations (like our states). Its primary purpose was (and still is) to create a peaceful means of decision-making among the six nations, and to organize group efforts and policies.

Here’s an idea I like a lot, possibly because I’m a woman. The Clan Mothers decide who has the chops to be a leader. They’re the ones who recommend promising young men for chiefhood. The Clan Mothers have the power to remove any chief who behaves in a way that strikes them as unseemly. I have to admit, I don’t know how Clan Mothers are chosen. But I think they’re onto something.

If I were a Clan Mother looking for kids with the makings of good chiefs, what would catch my eye? I’d be watching for the kids who break up fights. The kids who are curious and open-minded. Kids who can admit they made a mistake. Kids who are slow to judge and quick to forgive. Kids who are strong but kind.

To celebrate the end of this exhausting election, and to finish up this rather short issue of OC, I’ve chosen “Crack the Case,” a wise and beautiful song by Dawes, the Los Angeles folk/rock band co-founded by brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith. The lyrics are important. I won’t furnish a link, as they come up on the old-fashioned computer screen below.

Best wishes for a good tomorrow! See you in a couple of weeks, pretty sure.